binaryslate

Only on the rare occasion do I find myself actually getting excited about software. Today is one of those days, and what is the instigator you may ask. Well it’s FinchSync.

FinchSync is a tool for synchronizing contacts, appointments and tasks from Mozilla email and calendar products with a Pocket PC or SmartPhone.

Contacts are synchronized with the email client’s address book. The build-in applications of the Netscape- and Mozilla Application Suite are supported as well as the standalone Mozilla Thunderbird.

As a devout user of Thunderbird and Sunbird I’ve been unable to truly get 100% out of my Axim. I’ve had to settle for copying contacts, tasks and appointments across manually, a laborious task as you can well imagine, and a total productivity inhibitor.

And then Finchsync hoves in to view with it’s absolute simplicity. A small java server on the pc and a small sync cab on the axim. The setup was straightforward, server and client, the documentation perfect. I simply chose the Thunderbird and Sunbird files that I wished to be sync’d and then setup a user and server account, hit the sync button and hurrah, 250+ contacts zoomed over to my Axim.

If you’re an Outlook abstainer like myself, get this now !

I’m in heaven, thank you, oh thank you, finchsync !!

UPDATE:

I did have one problem, but more related to Sunbird than Finchsync. They changed from ics files for the calendar and tasks so you’ll need to follow this sunbird v3 how to if you are using the latest Sunbird.

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 Beta 1 is out and about.

# Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
# Visual Theme:Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability.
# Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
# Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
# Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
# Improved Offline Management: Thunderbird (Linux and Windows) automatically adjusts the offline state based on current network connectivity.
# Improved New Mail Notification Alerts:New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message text.
# Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
# Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
# Find As You Type
# Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying folders to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
# Updates to the extension system: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
# New Windows installer: Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
# MacOS X Univesal Binaries

Been waiting for the new version of Thunderbird for a long while. I always assumed they’d run firefox and thunderbird releases alongside each other but better late than never.

Check out Giveaway of the Day. What is it you ask?

They’re giving away free commercial software every day, they put up something new every 24 hours and you then have 24 hours to download it. You’re not likely to find photoshop available here but there might be something that sparks your interest.

Out of interest i’ve stuck their RSS Feed in Thunderbird so I can see what shows up.

Today has been Windows refresh day. I like to do a clean install every couple of months just to clean out all those redundant dll’s and other bumph.

Popped over to OpenOffice.org to get the latest version for the reinstall and I was pleasantly surprised to see the download available over bittorrent as well as the standard http/ftp route.

So opted for that and it came down at about 300kB/s, sweet!

This should be the standard for releasing software.

If this is not the future of design, I don’t know what is!

This is such a cool and innovative way of designing, and it looks a hell of a lot of fun too. I imagine the example ‘building blocks’ shown are only a small subset of all the possible parts available. Probably includes different materials too, liquids, pulleys, who knows!

I wonder if something like this is available for public consumption? Any offers?

tip: barelyfitz

Mozilla Corporation secretly posted its Firefox 2.0 browser today— an official announcement and publicly available links are not expected until tomorrow. You can go here to see the changelog or just go download it!

Always nice to have the latest firefox on your machine, now where is 2.0 for Thunderbird?

tip: langablog